We quote from The Catholic of this
city, its reply to the editorial under the
above caption in the Century Magazine
which we noticed in our columns last
month.
Truly the gathering storm is
bringing to the Nominal Church fearful
apprehensions of danger and utter
wreck.
The loud boastings of both
these hoary headed and decaying systems
of error, are only the efforts of each
to conceal their unrest and to guard
against what the fearful forbodings of
some term "a religious panic."



"The Catholic" says:

"Protestantism,which was and is,
a revolt against the divinely established
authority of the Catholic Church,
is seriously alarmed by the revolt of
one of its own very legitimate childrenMaterialism, Agnosticism, Infidelity,
or whatever else the thing may be
known byagainst itself.
Having sown
the wind it is at last reaping the whirlwind.
Thoughtful minds are beginning
to see and recognize the dimensions of
the coming storm, and are anxious to
save themselves from its strength and
fury, by an alliance offensive and defensive,
with the Catholic Church.
In
the February number of the Century Magazine, there is a very suggestive
article in the editorial department, discussing
the possibilities and probabilities
of "a reunion in the future between
the Roman Catholic and Protestant
bodies.
There is a peculiar significance
in the discussion of such a
subject in a periodical, which though
secular in tone, yet has for its original
editor, Dr. Holland, a strict Calvinist;
and its present chief owner and manager,
Mr. Roswell Smith, we understand,
is a prominent and pronounced
Presbyterian.

The four hundredth anniversary of
Luther's birth, and the discussions that
its celebration called forth, supply the
writer with a text.
He says that the
Lutheran celebration brought to view
the fact that "the religious reformation
of the last four centuries has not been
confined to the Church of the reformers.
A constant reformation in discipline, if
not in doctrine," he thinks, "has been
going on in the Church assailed by the
German ex-monk."
We need hardly
remind our readers of the two very
grave errors in this passage.
There
can be no reform of doctrine in the
Catholic Church.
Catholic faith is unchangeable,
whilst a disciplinary reform
is always in order, not only during
the last four centuries, but constantly,
from the very beginning.

But we are more interested, if possible,
in the admissions which the writer
makes, and the present tendencies of
Protestantism that he notes, than in
dealing with the well-meaning mistakes
he falls into on the Catholic side of
the question.
This Protestant exponent
shows that the bonds of sympathy are now
joining Catholics and Protestants to a
degree, which twenty-five years ago,
could not have been anticipated.
He
sees the growth of a feeling that these
two bodies of Christians need to be
united to resist the encroachments of
modern infidelity.
Protestantism, twenty-five
years ago, was boastful and disdainful
of the Catholic Church, to-day
it is powerless and helpless, when its
own childrenmodern infidelsare
using against itself the very weapons
which itself has been using for the last
four centuries against the Catholic
Church.
This makes all the difference
in the world, and our Protestant friends
are desirous, quite naturally so, of calling
to their assistance the aid, sorely
needed, of their Catholic neighbors.
Hear the language of the "Century" editor:
"As the conflict with Materialism
and Agnosticism has been waxing hotter
and hotter, it must have become evident
to intelligent Protestants that they
have in the Roman Catholic theologians
a strong body of theologians with whom
they ought to maintain friendly relations.
It is not Protestantism, nor the Papacy,
nor Calvinism, nor Trinitarianism, nor
any other secondary Christian dogma,
that is now on trial," proclaims the
writer further on, but "whether there is
such thing as religionwhether there is
a conscious God and a life beyond the
grave, and a free will, and a moral
law."
For the last four centuries,
Catholic theologians and writers have
been in vain telling Protestants that
their principles would land them exactly
here.
The early so-called reformers
denied free will, and by their doctrine
of justification by faith alone, practically
discarded a moral law.

The "Century" readily acknowledges
and pays a just tribute to the exalted
ethical standards of the Catholic Church,
and to its courage and consistency in
maintaining them against all efforts of
compromise.For instance, it openly
lays down that "the Roman Catholic
doctrine and practice respecting divorce
are much closer to the law of the New
Testament than those of the Protestant
Churches have been."
It also speaks
of an "earnest effort, at the present time
to bring the practice of the Protestant
Churches a little nearer to the Catholic
standard."
Luther and Henry of England
made short work of the New Testament
law regulating the marriage contract.
And whilst leading Protestant
ministers openly countenance and recognize
the looseness, not to say, shamelessness,
of modern divorce law and
practice, there is little reason to hope
that the Protestant Churches will be
brought any nearer to the Catholic
standard.

Whilst we fully recognize the kind
disposition and earnestness of the writer,
who is, doubtless, alarmed by what he,
in common with many others, is daily
witnessing in Protestantism and its
tendencies, it is simply folly to think
of any feasible plan of union between
Catholics and Protestants, such as this
well-meaning writer would propose.
The only union that can be effected, is
for our Protestant friends who are desirous
to escape from being submerged
by the deluge of modern infidelity, to
seek safety in the divinely fashioned
arkthe Catholic Church.
Against
this stately, wonderfully, supernaturally
constructed vessel, the winds and the
waves, and the fierce storms of nineteen
eventful centuries have beaten in vain,
because of the abiding presence of Him
therein, "whom the winds and the sea
obey."